Adding buffs, upgrades & more to my space mining game

[@BarneyCodes]

WISHLIST Star Mining Co. on STEAM! s.team/a/2584800/ So what do you think? Fixed card stats or random ones? I'd love to know! For more context on the problem: At the moment a Level 1 "Basic Charge" card ALWAYS has size 50 and strength 50. My idea for randomising them wouldn't be that the stats change every time you use a given card, but that each instance of a card would be randomised to start with. Eg, I could buy a basic charge with size 40 strength 60, then that card would always have size 40 strength 60, but the next basic charge I go to buy might have size 70 strength 50. I think I would also have it so that each card type would have a "power level" that is calculated based on a formula of the size and strength, so that every card of the same level has equal power, but their size and strength could be different (ie when strength goes up, size goes down to compensate, and vice versa) I hope that gives a bit more information, and thanks for taking the time to read! Also sorry, I think I was a bit overzealous with the sound effects in this one. I'll tone it down next time 😅

[@gauthamnair6075]

I think randomized buffs would stop people from just hoarding multiple to use per round. not knowing whether it’s worth it to buy a buff card with very little money or charges

[@BarneyCodes]

Yea I think it might be the way to go. I also think that randomising it offers more replay-ability since each time you play you can get completely different cards. Thanks for the comment!

[@netrouberkitsch7044]

@@BarneyCodes i would suggest to not randomize the cards, you got a randomized asteroid and i guess a randomized level progression, there should be some sort of stability players can relly on. if theres too much rng this could result in a lack of control for the player. with set vvalues for cards the player can also strategize more about the use of that cards. also loosing as a result of bad rng instead of skill is highly frustrating for many players.

[@dancingbanana627]

I’m not sure what to think about it, it’s nice to have consistency, but I can see why you would want to keep it for replay-ability. But I have another suggestion, you keep both but make one cheaper. I don’t know though.

[@BarneyCodes]

@@netrouberkitsch7044 Thanks for your comment! I'm still torn personally. I've updated my original comment with a bit more context, I think maybe the term "fixed" is misleading, because my idea is once a card's stats have been randomised, they would then be fixed for the rest of the run. Each instance of a "Basic Charge" would be different from each other, but each instance would be fixed for the game. I think this would fix the issue about strategizing, since the player would know what each card they have is capable of. I do think you've got a point about not leaning into randomisation TOO heavily though. I think I might just have to give it a go and see how it plays?

[@wiktorgrudzina9865]

In temrs of randomizing card stats i would stick to creating some variants (like 3 kinds of rarity of given card) to have more control over balance in a game

[@BarneyCodes]

Yea I've been thinking about balancing with regards to randomised cards and it definitely makes it more difficult. I've updated my pinned comment for a bit more context but I was thinking that each card could have a fixed power level (which is calculated by somehow combining it's stats), so eg a card with 60 strength and 40 size is the same power level as a card with 30 strength and 70 size (using a VERY basic version of a power level calculation). I think this might give me the power to balance the cards even with randomised elements, but I'm not sure I'll know until I try it out! Thanks for the comment!

[@leocrabe2253]

For the buff/debuf thingy, I think writing 1.5x instead of 150.00% will help a lot!

[@BarneyCodes]

That's a great idea, it would make it a LOT less clustered!

[@iqbrod5075]

Hey ! Discovered your videos recently, quite interesting keep it up bro ! In terms of cards I would suggest randomness in a given range, you might upgrade or reduce the range. You might also provide flat bonuses to upgrade the range. Ex: Damage 50-100 A risky bonus will be a *0.5 / *1.5 like 25-150 You might also add a flat 5 : 30-155 and so on

[@BarneyCodes]

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions! I really like the idea of both upgrade types, sounds like it would lead to some interesting decisions!

[@christopherjones7191]

Something you could do along the buff and debuff idea is to have a set of cards you can play in order when you confirm it with a single button. So you put a gem buff, size buff and clusterbomb effect followed by a regular bomb to have all of those go off when you confirm.

[@BarneyCodes]

That's a really interesting idea! I'll have to try it out and see how it goes. Thanks for the comment!

[@kardrasa]

now this is gaming

[@m3rcurus]

For the de/buff display you should only show changes. Assume that each one is at 100% and don't display them (or grey it out to de-emphasize). When a de/buff is added that's when you show the new value. Or better yet show a list of icons representing each change, then the total value. I'd also suggest formatting the decimals to not display trailing .00 and if there are trailing decimals to use a smaller font just for those. Are you using Notion to track your feature planning? I love Notion.

[@BarneyCodes]

I was wondering about using icons, I think that's a great idea! I was also thinking maybe instead of showing a percentage I could use a sort of power bar that goes from red (0%) to green (200%?) with a tooltip that shows the actual value? I really like the idea of hiding buffs that haven't been modified! And yep, using Notion! I find it super handy for keeping track of everything!

[@NetFoley]

I would also recommand using visual indicator of the buff like a bar next to the icon which length change with the buff power

[@BarneyCodes]

@@NetFoley Yea I think that's what I'll go for, thanks for the comment!

[@JamieBainbridge]

This looks neat and gives me the same feeling as Minecraft did when it was indev/infdev. I wish you even 0.1% of the huge success that game has had.

[@BarneyCodes]

Wow, thank you! I think even 0.1% is still very optimistic, but we'll see how it goes! Thanks again for the comment!

[@web_dev_cz]

Wooow a Java game! Cheers mate

[@BarneyCodes]

Hahaha I know... I talk about this in my first video on this game, but basically the goal with this game is to actually finish something and release it, so I'm sticking to what I know. I've used Processing and Java quite a bit so decided to just use that. After this game though I think I'm gonna move to using Godot